NYC asbestos suits padded with blameless defendants: study

Asbestos-related lawsuits are clogging up the Big Apple’s court system — and forcing companies to needlessly shell out tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills, a new study has found.

The New York Civil Justice Institute found that some law firms wrongfully name companies as defendants in civil complaints when they really have no connection to the cancer-causing substance. The lawsuits “drive up litigation costs for innocent defendants, contribute to corporate bankruptcies, congest court dockets, and slow case resolutions for plaintiffs,” study author and defense attorney Mary Margaret Gay said in a statement. “Nobody benefits from ‘sue first, discover later.'”